It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing
by Serenity Valley Girl
Summary: Song fic; what if Chuck discovered that he was attracted to Casey and then the Intersect is taken away...


Disclaimer: Chuck is not mine. If it were I'd probably be taking some work home from the office-like Zach and Adam!

A/N: This is my very first Chuck fic also my first slash. This one's not beta'd so please forgive any grammar mistakes. Also I haven't seen season 2 yet so it's pretty spoiler free. This is a song fic using Shania Twain's song It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing. If you like it please let me know-I have an idea for a sequel but I don't know if I want to do it or not-depends mostly on the response. :)

_

* * *

__Hope life's been good to you  
since you've been gone  
I'm doin' fine now I've finally moved on_

As badly as Chuck had missed his old boring life when he had been experiencing the life and death adventures of being the Intersect he sometimes wondered now whether the freedom he had reclaimed was worth what he had lost. Maybe if he had understood then just how much he would be giving up he would have worked just a little less at getting the Intersect out of his head and back to being the piece of machinery it was always meant to be.

Since no one other than Sarah and Casey had known about the presence of the Intersect in his mind none of Chuck's loved ones could understand what had changed in Chuck. At first they thought it was Sarah's departure but when her name came up he barely reacted at all. And the change in his personality had started before she moved back east although it had accelerated after her departure.

Chuck had slowly become a shell of the man he had been and no one could figure out why. There was clearly something Chuck had lost but what was it? It had gotten bad enough that Ellie, Devon and Morgan had invited Big Mike, Anna, Jeff, Lester and a few of Chuck's other friends over for a sort of intervention. And while Chuck had truly been touched by their concern and had promised to try to pull himself together within a week he was back to the husk of the Chuck they knew and loved.

What Chuck was missing was not something anyone, even those closest to him, would ever have guessed. If his life over the last several years had been his own, he might have been able to make some changes when that day came that had shaken his sense of self so profoundly.

He'd spent his time in college in a frat house with a bunch of other guys some of whom had been considered very attractive-if the girls he had overheard could be believed. But he'd never experienced any sort of reaction, physical or otherwise, that might have led him to remotely question his sexuality.

But then one day he had arrived at Casey's early one morning and had found him in the kitchen still dripping from his shower wearing nothing but a towel and drinking a glass of milk. It was far from the first time he had seen a shirtless Casey but for some inexplicable reason this time something snapped. Chuck suddenly found himself in a situation he had not experienced since junior high school when he had popped a woody in the middle of giving a report on the growing cycle of corn. Even now, fifteen years later, he couldn't eat corn.

_It's not so bad I'm not that sad_

I'm not surprised just how well I survived  
I'm over the worst, and I feel so alive  
I can't complain I'm free again

In his mind Chuck had decided that day was tied with his birthday when he had first become the Intersect for "Most Life Changing." There were so many things in his life that he had questioned. His past was littered with regrets and the ghosts of things he'd change if he could. But it had never occurred to him that he might be attracted to a man. Sure there had been that phase of worship of Han Solo but many nerds of his acquaintance had an ongoing love affair with _Star Wars_. And that absolute obsession with _Firefly_, particularly Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin but who didn't love the crew of Serenity? And sure he had been struck by Casey's resemblance to Adam but… Chuck was straight! He'd been so straight that he'd spent five years trying to get over his last girlfriend. On the other hand, he never been draw to anyone the way he'd been pulled to Casey. From the beginning there had just been something about Casey that he'd respected and on the very rare occasion that Casey had approved of something Chuck had done were times he'd treasured.

_Chorus:  
And it only hurts when I'm breathing  
My heart only breaks when it's beating  
My dreams only die when I'm dreaming  
So, I hold my breath to forget_

So that life changing day had forced him to examine things he'd never had reason to question before. It had taken Chuck sometime for him to get to the point where he could admit to himself the possibility that he was attracted to Casey. But once he had acknowledged his more than friendly feelings for the Jayne Cobb look-a-like Chuck had begun to notice certain looks and remarks coming from the NSA Colonel. Looks and remarks that made him wonder if just maybe he'd finally worked through whatever bad karma or bad luck or whatever it was that had made his life such a mess.

Then real-life had reasserted itself and Chuck had come crashing back to Earth. There was no way Casey felt anything for him but contempt or maybe tolerance on a good day. Besides, he knew they couldn't afford to blow their covers. He was with Sarah. If he broke-up with her to be with John what reason would there be for her to be around as much as she needed to be for the three of them to do their jobs?

_Don't think I'm lyin' 'round cryin' at night  
There's no need to worry, I'm really all right  
I've never looked back as a matter of fact_And then one day it was over. Honestly, Chuck had assumed his time as the Intersect would end with his death. Whether it would be at the hand of one of the many bad guys they regularly came in contact with or at the hand of one of his overly protective handlers was up for debate but his death had been a foregone conclusion. Then one rainy morning, the daily call with their fearless leaders the course of his life had taken yet another dramatic turn. Told to be in the Castle at 2pm that afternoon and then dismissed from the meeting, Chuck had been even more confused when Sarah had emerged from the meeting with a faint smile and something in her eyes he couldn't decipher.

On his arrival that afternoon, Chuck found an unfamiliar face sitting with Sarah, who was looking at him with a smile and Casey, who was uncharacteristically slumped in his chair with his head in his hands. Standing, Sarah had taken his hands in hers and explained that the man sitting at the table was a doctor- a doctor who had found a way to remove the Intersect from his brain. Chuck had frozen. How was this possible and what did it mean for his future? The doctor had seen his confusion and begun to explain the methodology what he was going to do to Chuck and the technical process. With his mind still trying to process what Sarah had told him he'd not really absorbed any of the doctor's speech.

In fact the only thing he remembered clearly from the time Sarah had made her announcement to when the doctor had shaken his hand before departing was the look in Casey's blue eyes the one time they had made contact with Chuck's. The gasp he had let out was assumed by both the doctor and Sarah to be a reaction to the cold metal the doctor had just brushed against his cheek but in reality it had been in response to the pain he had seen in Casey's eyes. He knew that look although it was a solid week later that he realized where he'd seen it before.

_And it only hurts when I'm breathing  
My heart only breaks when it's beating  
My dreams only die when I'm dreaming  
So, I hold my breath to forget  
_

Things had happened so quickly, the doctor had done whatever it was that he'd come to do and after testing him thoroughly had pronounced him free of the Intersect. By the next afternoon Casey was gone. He'd told Ellie and Captain Awesome there had been some sort of family crisis that required his immediate return to the east, quit his job and said a goodbye to Sarah and Chuck that had taken a grand total of two minutes and he was gone.

That was when Chuck started to pull in on himself. Sarah had stuck around for a while so her departure would not be tied in with Casey's. Then she'd explained that she had been accepted to a grad school in Chicago and was leaving. It made sense since Sarah had always seemed too bright to be working at placed like Wienerlicious and Orange Orange for the rest of her life. Her goodbyes had been much longer and involved tears but in the end she was just as gone as Casey.

_It only hurts when I breathe_********************************

Mmm, no, I've never looked back  
as a matter fact

Only after his handlers were gone did he realize just how much he had needed them. He had been so concerned about the negative effects of the Intersect on his life he hadn't really seen what it had brought him. Not only had it brought him Sarah, who had started as the girl he could never have and ended up as the second sister his parents had not given him and Casey who started out as the big scary guy with a gun and ended up as…well as someone who could have been even more important than Morgan or Ellie.; but it had also given him a sense of worth and accomplishment he had never felt before. Now he was back where he'd started, a crappy job, no sense of self esteem and no romantic prospects.

Even after his abrupt realization that Casey was not only hot in the objective sense but hot as in "I'd like to pull that towel off of you and lick every drop of water off your body" Chuck would have told if he had to lose one of his handlers it would be Sarah who stayed. She was the one he confided in; she was the one who had protected him from the start; she was the one who he trusted absolutely. But it was Casey who had taken his heart with him when he left.

_And it only hurts when I'm breathing  
My heart only breaks when it's beating  
My dreams only die when I'm dreaming  
So, I hold my breath to forget  
_********************************

Then he'd gotten an unexpected phone call. The NSA offering him the chance to become the agent Bryce had tried to save him from becoming. After some discussion, the powers that be at the NSA had decided Chuck had more to offer than the Intersect. However, there was a catch. There was no guarantee he'd ever see Sarah let alone Casey let alone be working with either of them. And he would have to leave his family and friends. But for the first time since the afternoon Casey had left his life Chuck had some measure of hope.

_Hurts when I'm breathing  
Breaks when it's beating  
Die when I'm dreaming  
It only hurts when I breathe_


End file.
